


all the little things

by portraitofemmy



Series: the one with the dog [7]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Chronic Illness, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dogs, Dom/sub Undertones, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Long Form Character Study, M/M, Massage, Memories, Mental Health Issues, Post-Season/Series 04, Quentin Coldwater is a sub, References to Past Child Abuse, Rimming, Service Submission, Softness, honestly it's so soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 02:27:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20418365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy/pseuds/portraitofemmy
Summary: But tonight, Dessy decides that circling in place and flopping down in the curve of Q’s stomach is good enough for her. Sleepy, warm and content, Eliot spoons up behind Quentin so he can wrap his arm around Q and scratch her ears. She yawns widely, and then lays her silly puppy head on Q’s ribs.“Let your Dad sleep,” Eliot tells her, and thenhears the wordsechoing in the silence of the room. Like this is Fillory-of-the-past and the silly needy dog who isn’t eventheirsis Teddy, crawling into bed with them before the sun rose.The story of how Lady Desdemona the dog officially becomes a Coldwater-Waugh.





	all the little things

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The working title for this fic was Dogs and Daddy Issues, and that basically tells you everything you need to know going into it. It’s possibly the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever written. This was meant to be a snapshot like the rest of the fics in this verse, but it kind of got away from me, and is now longer than the original fic. Woops? You could possibly read this as a stand-alone fic, but this time I actually wouldn’t recommend it. 
> 
> Also, if you like this verse, I made some [instagram edits](https://portraitofemmy.tumblr.com/post/186968947155/i-was-inspired-by-impossibletruths-so-here) to go along with it.
> 
> All my love to [saltandpepperbox](https://saltandpepperbox.tumblr.com/) for her tireless beta work and cheerleading.

Technically, Dessy is Kady’s dog. 

It’s Kady’s name on her registration, and Kady’s name on her tags. Even if the condo corresponding to the address on the tags is mostly occupied by Julia, and Eliot, and Quentin, that was technically Kady’s too. Eliot doesn't _mind_ subletting, finding rare and/or difficult to obtain magical items was a pretty fucking easy way of getting to live in Manhattan, and he’s wanted to do that since he was six years old. Plus, the fact that the condo wasn’t _theirs_ made it easier to spend days and maybe someday weeks in Fillory, stepping back and forth through the clock portal. 

Which isn’t something they did as often as maybe Margo would like, because honestly Fillory was still in open rebellion and actively at war, and that wasn’t exactly _conducive_ to quiet mental and physical recovery. Plus, there were Earth-projects they were involved with, Library projects and Hedge projects and god projects. Still, they had a reliable place to live and a clock that let them commute when they wanted to, and well. Eliot’s happy being an unpotted plant, as long as he has Quentin to tangle his roots around. Home to him has always been people anyway.

The dog, though. Lady Desdemona is Kady’s dog, and that’s starting to feel really, really wrong. 

Dessy is Kady’s dog, but Kady doesn’t seem to know what to do with her. She’ll play with the puppy, alright, sprawl on the floor and toss a ball around until she gets bored. But even on a night that Kady happens to be in the condo, when Dessy starts barking at 5am, it’s Eliot who stumbles up to get her automatically. It’s him who lets her out to the pee-pad on the porch, and it’ll be him who rinses it off later. The whole thing takes about 10 minutes, and in that time Kady doesn’t come down to see why her dog was barking. He doesn’t really expect her to. 

In the same way he does expect Dessy to follow him into their bedroom after, trotting along next to his longer stride with a happy jingle. She’s not exactly tiny-baby-small anymore, but she’s probably never going to be a big dog, and she’s definitely still a puppy. Which means she can’t quite hop up on the bed on her own, can really only bounce next to it until Eliot scoops her up.

Which he does, absently, half-asleep, because she’s in their bed about 50% of the time anyway. He sets her next to the curled parenthesis that is Q’s sleeping form on the right side of the bed, and goes to reclaim his own spot before she can decide that it’s hers and actually Eliot should sleep in the chair.

It’s only happened once, and Quentin had yelled at him.

Probably because he couldn’t really walk the next day.

But tonight Dessy decides that circling in place and flopping down in the curve of Q’s stomach is good enough for her. Sleepy, warm and content, Eliot spoons up behind Quentin so he can wrap his arm around Q and scratch her ears. She yawns widely, and then lays her silly puppy head on Q’s ribs.

“Let your Dad sleep,” Eliot tells her, and then _hears the words_ echoing in the silence of the room. Like this is Fillory-of-the-past and the silly needy dog who isn’t even _theirs_ is Teddy, crawling into bed with them before the sun rose.

It drops like an ice cube, _plonk!_, into the pit of his stomach, and suddenly Eliot is very, very awake. It’s not like– He’s not exactly _unaware_ of the fact that they’re basically fallen into the rhythm of parenting which they learned in another lifetime, when it comes to the dog. Probably, objectively, it’s harder for new couples to easily divide care-giving labor between themselves. In theory at least, it shouldn’t be so easy to know how to give and take this way. 

But it is. And they _do_. Because, baring the handful of time they spend in Fillory, this puppy is their responsibility. Q’s first, maybe, but only because he puts himself first in line, trusts Eliot to sure him up and pick up the slack. And that too, is familiar. Quentin cared for people as a coping mechanism, and Eliot was comfortable doing his caring from a distance part of the time. He could smooth things out behind the scenes and feel like he was contributing well enough.

Objectively, Eliot knows all these things. He also knows, in some abstract way, that somewhere in the hazy sketch of ‘_the rest of my life which is a thing that exists now I guess_’ there was the concept of Quentin and fatherhood. But that was a whole lot different than half-asleep referring to your partner as ‘your Dad’ and not meaning it even a little bit in the kinky way.

Quentin stirs a little, mumbling in his sleep, probably a reaction to the sudden bone-deep panicky stiffness in Eliot next to him. Eliot makes himself relax, rub soothing circles against Quentin’s stomach until he goes sleep-soft and loose again, then pulls away. Turning, he props himself up to half-sit half-lay against the headboard, staring out into their room like it might somehow hold answers for him.

Maybe it does. He sees his own shoes and boots in a neat line against the far wall and Quentin’s black leather shoes kicked pell-mell across them, running sneakers scattered in opposite corners of the room, boots toppled over next to the wardrobe. An abandoned dog bone lays next to one of Q’s sneakers, like someone had it in her mouth when she went over to investigate the shoe. There’s the small closet, propped open containing about 15 variations on the theme of ‘black-grey-blue button downs’ and also Eliot’s tie-rack because it wouldn’t fit in the wardrobe. There’s the spare leash, where it lives on the back of the chair near the window, which is also currently playing home to a black hoodie and the blazer Eliot wore yesterday. Books litter every flat surface, broken only by the shape of Q’s laptop, charging light glowing softly in the early morning stillness. Two plugged in phones, and Eliot’s cane by the window. Q’s pill bottle on the dresser. 

Next to him, Quentin makes an unhappy nose. He rolls over in his sleep, scooting until he runs into Eliot and can curl around him like a limpet, snuggle down with his head the base of Eliot’s sternum. It makes the big and complicated feeling in Eliot’s chest get bigger and more complicated, but he lets happen. Sinks his fingers softly into Q’s hair and pets him. Soft, repetitive motion, it soothes Eliot to do it as much as it calms Quentin, settles him back into sleep. It’s not enough to lull Eliot back into restfullnes, but it does give him stillness. Let’s him half-lay there and be aggressively cuddled.

It’s a bad position to be in for an extended period of time, though, and by the time Quentin starts to wake up for real, Eliot’s back is starting to complain at him. It goes abruptly from ‘kind of uncomfortable’ to ‘bad, bad, something went bad’ when he tries to get up, but luckily Quentin’s in the ensuite bathroom and doesn’t see him nearly fall over trying to stand up. 

Dessy does, but she can’t exactly tattle on him, as she cannot speak. 

“You don’t get to judge me,” he mutters at the dog, scowling, as he braces on the wall and uses it to help straighten out his spine. Oh, boy. Sciatic nerve pain. It’s been a while since he’s been troubled with this particular ailment and he has not missed it.

“What’d you say?” Quentin calls out from the bathroom, garbled like he’s brushing his teeth.

Eliot panics, and stutters out. “We should go get coffee! Like, for Julia and Kady, I don’t think we have enough iced coffee in the fridge for everyone.”

“O-kay,” Quentin intones back. Dessy scratches her ear at him, like she knows what Eliot’s doing and is disappointed in him. He gets her back by scooping her up and kissing her silly puppy face. Furiously.

One coffee run later, they come back to the apartment to find Julia sitting on the couch, book in her lap. “If you’re aiming to buy love with lattes, it’s absolutely working,” she tells them, holding out a grabby hand for her cup. “Though, I don’t think that will work on each other if you keep going together.”

“See, I know he loves me already, because he just spent like, 40 minutes listening to me talk about why Avengers Endgame is a bad movie,” Quentin says, cheerfully, bending down to unhook Dessy’s leash.

“Because the time travel is handled badly and Captain America deserved better,” Eliot recites dutifully, sinking down onto the couch next to Julia and pretending his spine works. “Apparently.”

“Essentially, yes,” Quentin agrees, pulling Julia’s latte out of their carry out tray to pass over to her, leaving Kady’s coffee on the counter. “Also like, inconsistent characterization and shock-value narrative.”

“I still have not seen this movie,” Eliot confesses to Julia, reaching out to take the iced coffee Quentin’s passing him. 

“I’m sure he would fix that,” she teases, blowing into her latte because she’s a _monster_ who drinks hot coffee in the summer. 

“At this point, I’m more invested in him telling me the plot than actually seeing it. Stories always end up delightfully nonlinear when told by Q.” Quentin sticks his tongue out in response, scooping Dessy up with his hand under her stomach so he can carry her over to the couch. For a moment, the image overlays in Eliot’s brain with a Quentin in rough-spun Fillorian clothes, holding the new born baby to his chest. It makes Eliot feel skinned and raw, some feeling stretched between _longing_ and _panic_. So he summarily puts it in a ‘deal with later’ box and puts the box on a shelf, and focuses on responding to Quentin’s brattiness instead. “What? I had professors in undergrad with visible boners for that kind of thing.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to see your teachers’ boners, Eliot.”

“You tell me this _now_?” He teases, which earns him a kind of bitey kiss, and a lapful of dog. 

“Movie reviews are a love language,” Julia say sagely, reaching over to scratch the puppy, who licks her wrist happily. 

“Is Kady still here?” Quentin asks, fidgeting weirdly with the straw of his cold brew as he settles onto the couch on Eliot’s other side.

“I hope she is, we just bought her coffee,” Eliot grumbles, wiggling around until he can find a position that doesn’t make his back ache. He ends up half pretzeled with his knee in Quentin’s lap, but Q doesn’t seem to mind, just settles his hand comfortably onto Eliot’s thigh.

“I think she is,” Julia says distractedly, going back to her book now that everyone’s settled. “I think there’s hedge stuff happening in New York this week.”

“I just– should talk to her about some dog stuff, at some point,” Quentin mutters, chewing on his straw a little. Dessy, who at any moment in her life is absolutely desperate to be in physical contact with Q, wiggles her way over until she can lick at the hand Quentin’s left on Eliot’s thigh. Because it’s there for her. Obviously. 

Eliot carefully guides her away from stepping on his balls, but otherwise lets her do her thing. “Dog stuff?”

“Yeah, well, I mean. She’s at least six months old, right? I think she should go to the vet, probably. And get like... shots? I don’t know, my mom had a dog but it’s not like I was around him that much. I definitely remember Mom and Molly talking about shots, though.”

That... makes sense. People were supposed to get check-ups. Made sense that animals would too. “Didn’t someone fuck a veternarian recently?”

“I– No?” Quentin half-asks, blinking at Eliot in confusion.

“I distinctly remember someone telling me something about a veterinarian and sexually transmitted lycanthropy. Did _Margo_ fuck a vet? Did _Josh?_”

“No, that’s Gordy,” Julia says absently. “Nobody fucked him. Or at least no one we care about. But he’s a hedge, and a friend of Kady’s. You could probably get her in with him.”

“Networking is a miraculous thing,” Eliot sighs sardonically, to which Quentin makes the pinched-awkward face of the socially-uncomfortable at the mention of such things. He really is unbearable cute. 

Eliot’s saved from doing anything completely embarrassing like pinching his cheek and cooing by New Penny blinking into existence in the middle of the living room. “S’up,” he huffs, dropping seven books on coffee table in front of them with a resounding thud, then looks over at Quentin. “Alice says she’ll be able to get away next Thursday if you want to hang out and also you two have _got_ to get a better message system then me, I’m fucking serious.”

“I– Oh, okay.” Quentin reaches for his phone, presumably to put a note in his calendar, and everything kind of goes off the rails from there. Apparently Kady’s hedge thing is actually a Library-and-hedges thing and Eliot’s– 

Just not that checked into it, honestly. His focus is on Quentin, and by extension Julia, and on Fillory. He’s only got so much problem solving brainpower to offer on a good day, never mind when his spine is actively trying to exit his body. Quentin doesn’t get to talk to Kady about the puppy, though, before she’s grabbing her coffee off the counter with a vague “See you tonight” and blinking away with Penny.

‘Tonight’ may or may not end up actually being tonight. Linear time was kind of a crap-shoot with the Library.

__

It ends up being about three nights later, in reality, when Kady, Penny and Alice blink back into the apartment. They spook the dog, who starts barking her happy little ass off, the only alarm any of them get to the Traveler express arriving in their living room. The apartment’s regular occupants are all scattered about, Eliot out on the porch poking half-heartedly at the grill, Quentin in their bedroom, and Julia in hers. 

Quentin’s got the dog in his arms by the time Eliot maneuvers his stubborn body back inside, whispering to her soothingly while she stares intently at the new-comers like they might be imposters, not her literal owner and friends. Q’s face is soft and sweet as he holds the puppy, scratching her ears with the hand not supporting her butt and murmuring to her. It makes Eliot’s stomach swoop in a way he’s still aggressively choosing not to look at too closely.

“New plan,” Eliot says, throwing the unopened packages of steak down on the counter. “Fuck grilling, we’re all going out.”

There’s a number of haunts they frequent with some regularity at this point, take-out places verses “let’s go out” places, and a celebration spot or two. They end up at one of those, because having more than five of them in one place at any given time is pretty much all the excuse they needed for a party these days. Even if it was kind of just Quentin and Eliot on one side and the weird quad of _are-we-gonna-fuck-and-in-which-combination_ energy that was Alice, Kady, Julia and New Penny on the other. 

Still, it’s nice to claim a big table in the back and let food and drinks flow. Eliot nurses a house special cocktail, something cirtusy with sage which is good enough he’s going to have to try to recreate it on his own sometime in the future. He’s spent a good chunk of the evening with his arm over the back of Q’s chair, talking to Alice, of all people, about magical data compression. Apparently she’s working with the remnants of FuzzBeat to drag some tech into the Library. 

“It’d be nice to be able to get emails,” she says, a little wistfully, which Eliot snorts at. 

“Soon you will be able to get porn spam in your work email like the rest of the world,” he jokes, raising a toast to her, and she– actually smiles. This might be the first time he’s made Alice Quinn smile since her boyfriend sucked his dick four years ago. 

Amazing things are possible. 

Said boy is picking half-heartedly at a plate of garlic fries, fidgeting with his wine glass as he shoots anxious looks across the table at Kady. Eliot’s not entirely sure why he’s so wound up about talking to her about the dog. As far as Eliot can tell, Kady generally doesn’t spend a lot of her considerable brain power on Dessy on any given day. He can’t imagine she’s going to have a problem with Q wanting to take on even more of it. 

But for whatever reason, this has crawled into Quetin’s brain and started chewing on his anxiety as something that can have a Bad Outcome, and well. Eliot’s still not exactly sure how to help with the anxiety spirals, besides to offer reassurance when asked. Now, he just rubs his hand comfortingly along Quentin’s back whenever he starts to look too anxious, and gives Alice the other 80% of his attention. This isn’t really physical magic she’s working on, but well. Eliot’s always been pretty good at thinking on his feet.

The anxiety about this subject in particular outlasts Quentin’s ability to people in general, and he still hasn’t brought it up with Kady by the time sun-set rolls around. The party’s still going strong, but Q’s starting to turtle into his shell a little bit. He’s lasted longer than Eliot’s fucked up back, in fact, but Eliot’s still not very good at respecting his own limits. Still, by the time Quentin looks ready to be done for the night, it’s not even approaching a lie for Eliot to lean over to him and whisper, “I think I need to head home soon before my spine leaves without me.”

The others elect to stay for another round, which isn’t surprising, but they do all technically live in the same place. Even if Alice and Penny are Traveling back to the Library tonight, it’s not exactly a goodbye. Still, Julia kisses them both on the cheek, and Eliot’s had just enough to drink to feel very, very fond of her, his not-at-all-sister, his partner in Q-related-crime.

“Make good choices,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“Oh, not even a little bit.”

All told, they do actually manage to leave before socialization turns sideways on Q, and he’s happy enough as they walk home. Eliot’s got an arm around him, leaning on him more than he probably should be, but Quentin doesn’t seem to mind. Q’s solid, he can take a little weight. If he’s proven anything in the last year, it’s that.

“That was fun,” Quentin murmurs, as they get into the elevator up to the condo. “I know sometimes they can be cranky and hard to deal with, but right now I wish they were around more.”

“Well, if Alice figures out her email thing, it might get easier for them to be,” Eliot points out, leaning back into the wall of the elevator. He spares a thought, achingly, to miss Margo. Mirror conversations were no substitute for having her in his life, in his arms, eviscerating people at his side. 

There’s a knowing look on Quentin’s face as he pushes the button for their floor, then steps into Eliot’s space. “We’ll visit her soon.”

“Mhmm,” Eliot hums in agreement, looking down at Quentin, who’s smiling a little, just a bit, loose and relaxed and easy in Eliot’s space. 

“Hey,” Quentin whispers, soft and only for Eliot.

“Hey,” Eliot returns, call and response. Q’s face tilts up towards him, the quiet little ask of _kiss me, kiss me please_. Eliot nuzzles their noses together, and gives, slides into a soft, warm, slick kiss. They elevator ride is short, but they make the most of it. The taste of red wine lingers on Quentin’s lips and Eliot chases it, licking softly against his lips. 

The elevator dings open, and Quentin starts giggling, helpless against Eliot’s lips. “They’re going to think we left early just to fuck,” Quentin mutters, low under his breath, stumbling out of the elevator towards home.

“Well,” Eliot drawls, giving him a lecherous look. Quentin’s cute as hell, always, but a blue button-down and black slacks make him look just a little more refined. A little more like a gift to be unwrapped. Eliot crowds up on him, arms around his waist to kiss at his neck while Quentin fumbles the lock. “They can think that if they want.”

“Stop, I need to get the door,” Quentin chuckles, squirming delightfully in Eliot’s arms. But Eliot does as requested, stops the little nipping kisses so Quentin can focus on getting them into the apartment. 

The dog seems to be asleep as they enter, and Eliot hussles Quentin along into their room quickly and quietly before they can wake her. Then it’s just slow, hot, hungry kisses against the back of the bedroom door, Quentin up on his toes, hands fisted greedily in the front of Eliot’s blazer. 

“I want to fuck you so badly,” Eliot groans out, shuddering as Quentin’s soft sweet tongue licks at his open mouth. “But I don’t think I can right now with my back like this.”

Quentin, to his credit, pumps the brakes almost immediately. “Okay,” he agrees, dropping his face into the crook of Eliot’s neck. “Is that... a soft ‘no’ or a ‘let’s get creative’?” 

“Oh, if you’ve got a creative solution to this problem, I’m all for it.”

Quentin pulls away, giving Eliot a speculative look which he usually reserves for books. It makes a flood of arousal wash through Eliot, honestly, a throb of pleasure between his legs to be looked _like that_ by Quentin. “Well, then. I’ve got some ideas.”

“I fucking love you,” Eliot breathes, truthful if a little horny about it, and that earns him an honest to god grin. Sweet saints alive. Eliot’s so fucked up over this man.

Quentin’s idea seems to begin with Eliot’s clothes disappearing, which, right, okay, that’s a reasonable first step. The fact that Q can’t seem to keep his mouth _off Eliot_ is a bit of a hindrance to the process, however. Blazer, vest and tie all shed into a pile on the chair, Quentin greets each inch of skin with his tongue and teeth as he works down the buttons on Eliot’s shirt. It’s– a lot, quite frankly, Eliot’s worked up enough that Quentin cupping his pec and sucking on it is really shorting out his brain.

“Your _mouth,_ Jesus,” Eliot half-complains, and he’s sort of half-hoping this is heading towards a blow job, because okay. That might not be _creative_ for them, but Eliot’s emphatically _not complaining_.

Quentin’s hands drag down Eliot’s arms as he pushes the shirt off, pushing back up onto his toes to kiss and kiss again. “Get your pants off,” Quentin mutters, breaking away to go for his own shirt, and Eliot’s never been so happy to take instruction, honestly. “How are you going to be most comfortable? On your back, on your side, on your stomach?”

“On my stomach, probably,” Eliot admits. That seemed to be the particular curvature required for his back not to complain. 

“Excellent,” Quentin says quickly, stumbling out of his pants like the dork he is.

Eliot’s not sure what he is expecting as he settles onto his stomach. There’s a limited number of possibilities in this position, after all. What he was not expecting was for Quentin to climb up onto him and park it to sit on his thighs, and start just– rubbing his back.

Which feels _incredible_, honestly, though maybe not the kind of good feeling he’d thought they were moving towards. But Quentin’s strong, solid hands dig into muscles sore from overcompensating for the nerve pain, and Eliot’s breath hitches. “I feel like I’ve been tricked,” he complains half-heartedly, as Quentin’s thumbs press into the meat of his shoulders. 

“Hush,” Quentin mutters, bratty, working the heels of his hands into the center of Eliot’s back. “You’ll have an orgasm, I promise.”

It would be clear to anyone who’s ever actually had a massage that Quentin has no idea what he’s doing from a professional stand-point. But just the touch would feel nice, and the pressure’s good too, forcing tightly wound muscles to release. Eliot wasn’t even aware of how much tension he’d been holding in his upper back, trying to exist in a way that didn’t aggravate the sciatic nerve pain.

“S’nice,” Eliot slurs, a little, face mashed into the pillow in front of him.

Quentin snorts, inelegant. “You’re allowed to ask for things you need, you know.”

“Don’t need it,” Eliot says, stubborn, and then groans loudly as Quentin find a particularly stubborn knot of muscle and works at it with his knuckles. 

“Uh huh.”

As in every area of his life, what Quentin lacks in natural talent at this, he makes up for with attention and dedication. By the time he’s given up any pretense of active massage and is just touching Eliot, hands over his skin, Eliot’s whole back feels warm and relaxed. The first brush of Quentin’s lips against the back of his neck makes him jump, a little, and Q pauses. “This alright?”

“Yeah,” Eliot promises, not sure what he’s agreeing to and not entirely caring. It’s rare that Quentin takes the lead on sex, and if he needs reassurance along the way, Eliot’s happy to give it. “Whatever you want, baby.”

The next kiss falls at the base of his neck, where the vertebrae protrude just a little, Quentin’s soft lips against warm, sensitive skin. Another kiss, warm and just a little wet with tongue below that, and another, between Eliot’s shoulder blades. He shivers, helplessly turned on and hard against the blankets, as Quentin kisses down his spine. Warm open mouthed kisses against the skin of his lower back, above the place where pain lies dormant under the surface. Quentin’s thumbs rub tender, careful circles against the curve of his spine, kissing gently, Jesus, this man and his _mouth_–

Eliot’s got the general idea of where this is going by now, and excitement unfurls in his gut, in his hard cock. The feeling of having his cheeks parted, being looked at and _seen_ like this is still illicitly thrilling. Little waves of excitement bubble in Eliot’s stomach as Quentin’s thumbs brush against where he’s tender and exposed. A soft breath of words, and then the tingle of magic sparkles all over Eliot’s hole, reaching inside of him. Cleaning, he thinks with half a brain as Quentin hums softly, lips and tongue brushing against him in a soft, light drag like a hello.

"You've learned so much sex magic," Eliot sighs, delighted and proud, as Quentin's breath spreads across his skin.

Quentin hums in agreement. "You're my sex Yoda.”

"I'd rather be Ewan McGregor," Eliot quips and receives a bite on his ass cheek for his trouble. “Brat!” he accuses, just to hear Quentin giggle, feel the vibrations of it against his sensitive hole. Fuck, it’s been way too long since Eliot’s had this.

Quentin doesn’t have it in him to tease, not much, not for an extended period of time. Eagerness was his defining attribute when it came to sex, and this was no different. Sweet little kisses give way to the warm wet swipe of his tongue over sensitive nerves, and Eliot lets his eyes fall shut at how good– how _good_– how fucking amazing it feels.

Oh lord, it’s fucking amazing, pleasure radiating out, washing through him until his cock is throbbing and his nipples are tight, achy little points where they drag against the bed. Fingers twisting into the blankets and it’s all Eliot can do not to ride back, push back onto Quentin’s face, his hot, wet mouth. 

“Fuck, Q. _Harder_,” he pants, aching for more friction, the slow slippery glide of Quentin’s tongue enough to drive him crazy. A soft hum, and Quentin’s doing as instructed, firmer strokes over where Eliot’s opening up for him helplessly, unconsciously. He’s so relaxed from the massage, from trust and experience, it’s nothing to let his body yield to Quentin’s tongue. 

Then he’s _inside_, and somehow it’s _better_, Quentin’s tongue inside him where everything is– aching and hungry. Quentin’s hands, those lovely strong masculine hands, grip his cheeks and pull, and Quentin’s thumbs brush just against the edge, chin drag over Eliot’s perineum and–

“Baby, baby, please,” Eliot breathes, rolling his hips back in a little wave, chasing–

“Whatever you need,” Q agrees, voice muffled _into Eliot’s ass_, saints alive. “Tell me what you need.”

“Fingers, get your– just. In me, _Q_,” Eliot moans out, and bless him, Quentin _does_. They don’t have edible lube on hand but magical lube is body-safe, food-safe, existence-safe, the idea of slipperiness made manifest. And maybe Eliot really is sex-Yoda, because soon Quentin’s just. Fitting his fingers into Eliot, one which Eliot’s almost too relaxed to feel and then two, which is just–

“Perfect,” Eliot sighs, and goes boneless. He can almost feel Quentin smiling against his ass, and he wants– he wishes he could _see,_ Quentin’s smiles are a limited resource which should be treasured but, oh fuck, his _tongue._

Quentin doesn’t bother to fuck too much with the fingers in his ass, just a little until he can find Eliot’s prostate, and then just fucking– goes to town on it, all the while trailing his lips and tongue around the sensetive rim. It’s fucking direct stimiluation, and Eliot’s going out of his mind with it, pleasure curling low in his balls and drawing them up tight. It’s just– too good, clenching down on Q’s fingers, riding back against his sweet slick mouth and forward to drag his dick against the bed, to hump the blankets if he’s being honest about it. 

“_Fuck_, Q, fuck,” he breathes, hands clenching tightly as he chases it, gets a hum in response that lights him up like a firework.

His orgasm is a long, slow drawn out thing, starting deep inside him right under Quentin’s clever fingers, and cresting out. He cries out as his balls clench up, dick rutting desperately into the bed as he comes and comes and _comes,_ the waves of pleasure turn to tingles as they dissipate across his skin. Quentin works him through it, fingers and tongue drawing everything from Eliot they can get. 

It turns soft, as Eliot comes down, Quentin moving to trails gentle kisses along the meat of his ass cheek. He leaves his fingers in place until Eliot starts to squirm, and then pulls them out carefully. It’s a loss, it always is whenever Eliot gets something up inside him and has it taken away again, but it means he can start to roll away from the wet spot, onto his back to get Q in his arms.

“Careful,” Quentin say quickly, concerned, lubey hand flying out to catch Eliot’s torso mid-twist. Eliot sighs, but lets them rearrange in a more ergonomically friendly way, until he can get Quentin’s compact little body in his arms, and fucking _kiss him stupid_, Jesus. What else was the point of cleaning spells?

Quentin’s hard, of course he is, gets off on getting Eliot off every single time but especially with his mouth, orally fixated little thing that he is. He settles into Eliot’s arms, melting into the kisses, and it’s just the right angle for his cock to catch in the fold between Eliot’s bent-up leg and his torso and slide there and–

“Fuck,” Quentin swears, shuddering, and then whines again as Eliot takes the opportunity to bite softly at his lip. “Can I–?”

“Yeah, yeah, baby, come on.”

“_Eliot_,” Quentin sobs out, fingers scrabbling helplessly against Eliot’s chest, curling into his chest hair and tugging as he ruts against him, cock slippery-wet with his own need. Eliot shivers, arching up a little against Quentin’s restless hands. Cupping the back of his neck, Eliot tugs him down into another kiss, hot and open, fucking his tongue in against Quentin’s. Quentin’s so needy, so open and hungry, and it’s second nature to fit his own hands over Quentin’s wrists, to hold them to himself until Q relaxes. 

It’s a hot, hungry, animal thing, to have Quentin’s bare body against his, to let Quentin work his cock into the crease of Eliot’s thigh. Holding his wrists gently against Eliot’s own chest, as he whispers “I’ve got you, sweetheart, you made me feel so good. You can let go now,” into Q’s trembling, open mouth.

Quentin makes a desperate, broken sound and does, lets go, unspools into Eliot’s waiting arms as he comes across his hip. Eliot wraps him up, holds him, kisses him through all of it. 

“Fuck,” Quentin breaths, weakily, and Eliot laughs, just a little, feeling– high on endorphines and skin contact. 

It only takes them a handful of moments to clean up and settle, thank god for magic, really. Because then Eliot can have Quentin’s warm weight half on top of him, all soft skin and loose limbs and okay. Eliot’s always been kind of tactile after sex, much to his own chagrin, but this is better because Q wants it _too_. Cuddles in close and just breathes in Eliot’s arms, happy to be touched. 

Whatever brain silence Quentin can manage to win through sex doesn’t last forever through, and pressed close like this, Eliot can feel the tension bleeding back into him. Something’s winding him up, and apparently no amount of post-orgasmic haze is enough to keep it at bay forever.

“I can almost hear you thinking, you know,” Eliot murmurs, sliding his hand up the back of Q’s neck and down again, over and over until the tension starts to leave him again. 

“Sorry,” Q mumbles, and Eliot bites back the instinct to tell him not to apologize. Sometimes, that just got you nowhere but a spiral of apologies-for-apologizing. Q does curl in towards him, a little bit, all velvet soft skin that Eliot gets to _touch._ The hormone soup of post-oragsm still pinging around in his brain makes touch feel incredible, and he indulges. The hair on Quentin’s forearm ruffles under his hand as Q curls around him.

“What’s eating you?” Eliot asks, sliding his hand up to cup Q’s shoulder, then skates gentle fingertips down his back.

“It’s dumb and you’re going to laugh at me.” Quentin’s voice is muffled, having face planted himself into Eliot’s chest. 

“Well, maybe. But not in a mean way.”

“Do you think Kady’s going to be mad at me when I ask to take the dog to the vet?” 

Eliot doesn’t laugh. Sure, maybe in some objective way, it’s a little funny how intimidated Quentin is by literally all the girls they know. But subjectively, the girls they know are pretty fucking bad ass and Kady, of all of them, is maybe the least personally integratedinto Quentin’s life. Also, fucking battle mage, et cetera. But the root of this worry, as in all things, is Quentin’s deep-seated care, the way he just loves with everything in him. Eliot or Julia or the stupid, silly puppy, it doesn’t matter. If Quentin loves something, the stakes are high 100% of the time.

It’s still a lot to adjust to, sometimes, when you’re used to making yourself numb to the world as a coping mechanism. Quentin’s love could feel like too-warm water on frozen fingertips: so hot it hurts.

“I don’t know why she would be,” Eliot muses, nudging Quentin back enough so they can make eye contact. “It’s not like you’re trying to make _her_ do it.”

“Yeah, I just–” Quentin fumbles, clearly trying to figure out how to give voice to his anxieties in a way that will make sense to someone outside his brain. Eliot waits him out, gives him the time he needs to organize his thoughts. “She’s not my dog, you know? Doesn’t feel like it’s really my place. But Kady’s not exactly doing it, and you know... casual neglect is still neglect.”

It sends a chill through Eliot, as cold as the Indiana winter wind cutting through a thin jacket. For just a second, he’s 16 years old and sleeping in the barn, locked out of his father’s house with no phone and no older brothers around to let him in anymore. 

Something of what he’s feeling must show on his face, because Quentin makes a soft, distressed sound, touching Eliot’s cheek. “Hey, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Eliot lies, and– hates himself for it. Because he’s supposed to be done lying to Q. But how the fuck is he supposed to talk about _this_, when it’s something he manages to avoid thinking about, most of them time. Goddamn it, he’s had enough time with his fucking daddy issues in the Happy Place to last a lifetime, he doesn’t need to go inviting them into bed with him. 

Fuck, he wants a drink. 

But getting out of bed to go find some whiskey is a sure fire way to make this A Thing, and also... he doesn’t want to. In memory he’s cold and alone in a bail of hay, but in reality he’s in a warm bed with soft sheets, and a lover’s silky skin under his palms. That’s a hell of a thing, really. He can have a drink later. 

“It’s okay if you’re not. Fine, I mean,” Quentin says, softly, just the smallest opening, for Eliot to walk through if he wants too. It’s kind, and generous, and definitely the kind of thing someone who’s been going to therapy since he was 15 would say. But Eliot– can’t step through that door right now, he just can’t.

“Thanks, baby,” he says instead, sincerely, nudged Q over onto his side so the can settle on the pillow face to face, holding on. “I can talk to Kady about the vet if you want. I don’t mind.”

“You can’t do every hard thing for me, Eliot. As much as I appreciate that you’re willing to help,” Quentin says, frank and honest. “Sometimes I do just have to get over it. I–”

Whatever he’s about to say is cut off abruptly by two seperate phone alarms going off, trilling into the dim light of their bedroom. 

“Pill time,” Eliot says needlessly, even as Quentin’s huffing, rolling away to dig his phone out of his jeans pocket on the floor. 

“Pill time,” he agrees, stretching a little. Post-coital cuddles officially over as dictated by medical necessity, Eliot sighs, tries to take stock of his own body. Back pain, still, but everything else feels about as good as it ever does these days. He allows himself the pleasure of watching Quentin walk around naked while he finds his sleep pants, the stark dark lines of the tattoo on his back standing out against his pale skin. Eliot watches him and thinks _Q, Q, Q._

“Shut off your phone, I’m going, I’m going,” Quentin grouses, and Eliot groans, drags himself up to fish his phone off the floor. 

Q taking his meds as good an excuse as any to get up and get ready for bed properly. Eliot goes through skin, teeth, and hair routines, comfortably sharing space with Quentin in the little ensuite bathroom. They settle back into bed with books and phones and each other to occupy themselves, and it’s so far from a cold barn in the middle of nowhere, Eliot can’t honestly believe they belong to the same life. This life feels closer to Fillory than to Indiana. 

Well, it would, wouldn’t it? With the sleepy weight of Quentin reading tucked into his side, it’s an echo of another life, better only in the effort it takes to keep it, the conscious choice. 

_When I have a choice, I choose you,_ Eliot thinks, nose buried in Quentin’s hair. _I choose you._

__

_In the dream, Eliot’s in the cottage._

_Not the Physical Kids Cottage-turned-Happy Place, but their cottage. The cottage by the mosaic in Fillory of the past. Time is fluid in the way it is in dreams, sometimes, but Eliot instinctively knows this to be a time in which there are only two parents living in this house. For whatever reason, he’s sorting chalk on the table in the living space, with the clink of mosaic tiles filtering in through the open doorway. It’s too irregular to be Quentin working on the puzzle, which means it’s Teddy, playing with the tiles. Eliot keeps an ear out, and keeps sorting._

_Time slips, in the dream, skipping ahead to a moment where he realizes there’s been no sound from outside for longer than there should be. He’s just beginning to crane his neck to peek out the open door, when a cry pierces the air. _

_A shrill, terrified little-boy voice yelling “Papa!” _

_The ice-rush of adrenaline and fear hit at the same moment, and Eliot’s out the door of the cottage before he can even hear his chair hit the ground. “Teddy!” he yells out, running out onto the mosaic, but there’s nothing except–_

_“Papa!” comes the shrill cry again, and Eliot turns towards the sound, running–_

_Running–_

_Running, but getting nowhere. _

_“Teddy!” Eliot calls out again, struggling in vain to move forward through a landscape that’s turning to mud, gluing his feet to the ground. “Teddy, where are you?”_

_“Papa, please!” Teddy pleads, somewhere in the forest around the cabin, and Eliot needs to get to him. He can’t get to him, why can’t he get to him, he needs to get to his son before–_

Eliot wakes up with a start to find himself looking into Quentin’s worried face. Hands rub his shoulders as Q tries to pull him out of the dream. “It’s okay, it’s just a nightmare,” Quentin murmurs. Quentin, 27 years young and not anyone’s father, not in these bones. Eliot blinks, and blinks, and doesn’t realize he’s blinked out tears until Quentin lets out a soft distressed sound. Q’s careful hands brush his cheek, as he murmurs reassurance. “It’s just a dream, it wasn’t real.”

Eliot chokes out a laugh, because _oh, the irony_. “I’m going to go get some water,” he whispers, even though he wants to bury himself in Quentin’s arms. He doesn’t want to _talk_ about it, though, and if he stays Q’s gonna make him talk about it. Getting out of bed takes about four times as long as it really should, because fucking back pain, fuck you, baby monster. He can feel Quentin’s sleepy, worried gaze on him, but Eliot studiously ignores it, focuses on trying to straighten his spine.

If he were a less stubborn bitch, he might go for the cane propped up by the window, or even let Q help him. But he hasn’t given in to the cane yet in this particular bout of chronic pain, and he really, really doesn’t want to look at Q right now, so he just grabs a robe to pull on and... Escapes, into the kitchen to actually get a glass of water, then hunches over the counter and tries to find a position that doesn’t make the nerves in his lower back and hip scream out in agony. The dream swims through his mind, Teddy’s shrill young voice shouting _Papa!_ Jesus, you shouldn’t be allowed to be burdened with a parent’s terror when you’re not a parent anymore.

Do you ever stop being a parent? Even if this body, these bones, have never held a new born baby, never lifted your son over your head to hear him laugh in the sunlight. _There’s no road map for this,_ he thinks, pressing his face into the cool granite of the countertop. _There’s no how-to guide for dealing with the fact that you’ve already lived a full life once, and remembering it._ Humans weren’t meant to feel things like this.

He’s not sure how long he stands there, hunched over on the island as the radiating pain slowly fades. It’s long enough that Quentin pads out of the bedroom, footsteps familiar in the quiet apartment. _I would know you by the way your feet struck the Earth_, Eliot recites to himself, mentally, as Quentin steps up behind him. 

“Back still?” he asks softly, because it’s been his back recently but it isn’t normally. It’s usually the knees, though in this life it’s not from years of kneeling on hard tiles. He’s morbidly curious what the Monster did, what it used his body _for_ that it could fuck up his knees this badly. But that wasn’t it right now, and if Q’s going to be awake and out here, being a _good boyfriend_ about it, Eliot’s not going to lie to him.

So Eliot nods into the countertop, hums out a little “yeah.”

There’s a moment of soft sounds, the brush of skin and the swish of fabric that is a spell being cast. Then Quentin’s hands slide up his back, radiating magical heat that sinks into Eliot’s sore muscles like liquid. It, stupidly, makes him tear up again, though whether it’s relief or the overwhelming reality of Quentin’s love for him, he couldn’t tell you. _50 years._ Jesus.

“Dream or memory?” Quentin asks softly, broad strong palms rubbing across his back, pushing heat in against him to ease the pain.

“Fuck, I don’t even know. Dream of a memory? Memory of a dream?” Eliot sighs, beginning the slow process of uncurling his spine. The heat feels great on the sore muscles, but the sciatic nerve pain needs ice and he knows that. “Can you get me an ice pack?” 

It’s hard, still is, asking for things. Believing that Quentin’s not going to decide that Eliot’s more trouble than he’s worth, that Eliot doesn’t have to _earn_ his place in Quentin’s life by being fun and gregarious and bold all the time. He’s working on it, but it’s hard. But it’s Q, and he’s nothing if not as devoted to this ‘_beauty of all life, part 2_’ venture as Eliot is. It’s easier to ask for things than it might be if Q didn’t give them so easily.

Quentin waits until Eliot’s upright and stable and then ducks away, pulling open the freezer drawer to fish out a squishy ice pack. They get settled on the couch, Quentin on his back and Eliot on top of him, hips snug between Quentin’s thighs. The position could feel sexual, has many times before, but like this it simply allows Quentin to settle the ice pack on Eliot’s lower back. Eliot relaxes into him, head resting on Quentin’s chest over the steady _beat_-beat, _beat_-beat, _beat_-beat of his heart. For all that he’s small, Quentin is surprisingly solid, a dense little package of muscle and bone and sinew. Wrapped up in him like this, Eliot feels... safe. Even with his feet dangling off the edge of the couch. 

“I had a dream about Teddy,” Eliot murmurs, muffled into the soft fabric of Quentin’s t-shirt. Quentin’s hands, which had been petting his back over the robe, still for a moment. Kind of desperately, Eliot wishes he wouldn’t stop, nuzzles his face against Q’s chest like that might prompt him to go back to touching. Maybe it works, because the slow path of his hands starts up again. “He was calling out for me and I couldn’t find him.”

“Yeah, I– I know those dreams,” Quentin says hesitantly. “He only ever got lost _once_ and it’s like it digs into your brain forever.”

“Wasn’t even that lost,” Eliot muses. “Just wandered away from the river.” He couldn’t have pin-pointed this memory with any detail a moment ago, but at Quentin’s words it swims up, still living in his body, in the space beneath his ribs.

“A little lost is too lost,” Quentin gripes, and this conversation _feels_ familiar, even if Eliot can’t remember having had it before. He misses, in a way he doesn’t usually, the feeling of having a kid in his arms. Tightens them around Quentin instead.

“I just kept hearing his voice yelling _‘Papa!’_ and not being able to get to him.”

Quentin’s hand comes up to rest against Eliot’s cheek, nudge him until Eliot looks up at him. “You were an amazing father to him, Eliot,” he says softly, his thumb brushing against Eliot’s sideburn. “There wasn’t anything in the world you wouldn’t have done or given for him.”

“I was so scared of it,” Eliot breathes, because even now that feeling is easy to remember, twisting tight in his stomach. He’s had a while to adjust to the concept of _fatherhood_, but– even now, it’s something he wants and fears in equal measure. Somehow the want is stronger, and the fear was softer, when he applies the idea to a _him-and-Q._

“Mm, I remember,” Quentin murmurs in agreement. His fingers move up to start working through Eliot’s sleep-messy curls, and Eliot lets his eyes fall shut, melting into the touch. “You were afraid of becoming your dad.”

“Yeah.” It’s more than a memory, it’s a physical feeling that lives in his body, the way he’d just. Shut down, a little, at first, when Arielle had first started to show. Quentin had bullied him into talking about it then in a way things are too fragile for now, but– there were parts of it Eliot had never managed to articulate, even to himself. “I think I was also afraid of _you_ becoming my dad.”

“Me?” Quentin startles, loud enough that Dessy’s head pops up form where she’d been sleeping on her bed in the corner. “Eliot, I could never– _ever_ hurt you.”

“I know.” Because he does know. Of all of the hurting, of all of the broken things that have existed between them, it’s always been Eliot doing the breaking. And add to that– Quentin isn’t a violent man. Even when staring certain death in the face, his instinct is to reach out, to soothe, to try and talk through the problem. Really, Eliot isn’t sure he’d ever met anyone _less_ like his father. But still. “I had two models for parenthood, I suppose, my father and my step-mother. And I’d decided a long time ago I’d never be my father, so...”

“I don’t... remember enough to put this in context, El.”

“It’s fine,” Eliot dismisses, reaching with the hand hanging off the couch to hold it out towards the puppy. She gets up, trotting over to them to investigate. “I think I made a rule about not arguing around him? I think that was why I did that. I figured you’d kind of put it together at that point.”

“I don’t remember if I did,” Quentin whispers into Eliot’s hair, clearly distressed, and Eliot kind of wishes he hadn’t said anything about it.

“You were a good father, too,” he points out to Quentin, bites back the _better than me_, because it’s not true. It’s not, it’s just fear, they both did their best and learned from each other. “You were always the person he wanted when he was upset.”

“You were the person he talked to when he needed to work through a problem.”

“Yeah, well, I’m good at handling Coldwater Brain-Noise,” Eliot says dryly, and Quentin snorts. Dessy sniffs at Eliot’s fingers, then starts licking his hand, clearly affronted that she’s been bothered at this time of night and he has nothing besides skin to offer her.

“You are,” Quentin sighs, arms sliding tightly around Eliot in a hug. “Hey, come up here.”

Well. What’s Eliot supposed to say to that? He has to extricate his fingers from the dog but he manages it, leveraging himself up until he’s hovering over Q, propped up on his forearms. It sends his ice pack sliding away, but Quentin grabs it as it makes a break for the floor, settling it back on the small of his back. “Thanks, baby,” he murmurs warmly, brushing his fingers through Quentin’s soft hair. 

“Sometimes I feel like I can’t get close enough to you. Like, I just want to pull you inside my chest and keep you there,” Quentin murmurs, his breath a soft susurration across Eliot’s lips. His arms tighten, like he could do it, pull Eliot into himself until they share one breath, one steady beating heart.

“I’m already there,” Eliot whispers back. Quentin unspools when Eliot kisses him, relaxing back into the couch, and Eliot lets himself melt too. It’s safe, to be soft and open like this, when it’s with Quentin. Fear had no place in Quentin’s arms.

__

Eliot, shockingly, is not actually in the apartment when Quentin pushes through the anxiety-fog to ask Kady about the vet. 

Julia had asked him to come with her in search of this month’s rent-item (a cursed yak spleen which seems to have turned up in the Bronx) and he’d agreed to go because, well. He hasn’t had reason to leave the apartment in a couple days for longer than a Starbucks run, and– He loves Q. He _loves him_, he does, but in order to maintain the level of patience and care that Quentin _deserves_ during a high-anxiety period, Eliot... needs a break. If he doesn’t get some time away from Quentin’s twitchy worry, he’s going to snap at him, and Eliot doesn’t _want_ to snap at him. 

So he goes yak-spleen hunting with Julia.

Which is honestly, kind of fun? Julia’s an excellent magician despite being technically a hedge bitch, clever like Q and more vicious. They end up trading riddles with a bridge troll who’s camping out under an overpass, winning the item in exchange for some glamour work. There’s something familiar in the rhythm of working magic in exchange for the tools to live, coming home to Q after. It’s not quiet memory but it fits in his body like a familiar pattern, physical deja vu. 

But it’s him and Julia, not just him alone, so they stop on the way home to window shop in the fashion district. Eliot listens with mild fascination as Julia casually describes a childhood lived in the kind of wealth he’s always affected. Her mother is on the _board of the Met_, for fuck’s sake.

“How did you and Q end up being friends?” Eliot wonders, because he _knows_ how Quentin was raised, brought up by a single parent with an associate’s degree. Quentin’s childhood was much more in line with Eliot’s, minus of course the shitty father and fucking farm work. He can’t imagine life as a ten year old with casual access to Calvin Klein. 

“We moved out of New York when my older sister started middle school,” Julia says with a shrug. “My dad wasn’t doing well, and my parents wanted us to ‘focus on family’ or whatever the fuck that means. Q and I were both in the advanced reading programs.”

“Ahhh, lifelong nerd bonding,” Eliot says sagely, and Julia rolls her eyes at him.

“We both loved the Fillory books, and things weren’t exactly great at my house. So we spent a lot of time...”

“Finding secret doors to hide from your problems?” Eliot offers, and she nods.

“Yeah. I grew out of it, and he did for a little while. Then– well, you know this part of the story.” Eliot nods, because he does. Hospitals, coping mechanisms, Quentin clawing his way back to a semblance of life with pure determination and the help of Jane Chatwin. “Everyone expected us to drift apart once we started high school, but... He’s Q. Once he’s decided you’re one of his people, that kind of loyalty is addictive.”

“It is,” Eliot admits. “Brave and loyal, that’s Q.”

“Classic Gryffinpuff,” Julia agrees, and grins when Eliot groans, turning away from her to look back at the display of Italian leather shoes. Lovely, soft, buttery-leather that he absolutely doesn’t need, but probably exist in his size somewhere in this store... Julia’s arm slips through his, steering him away from the window. “You put up a good front, but you surround yourself with nerds.”

“I surround myself with people who are unapologetic about what they love,” Eliot corrects. “Margo will go on about the proper way to cook _chilaquiles_ and wine bouquets as much as she will Battlestar or Game of Thrones.”

“Mhmm, and we’re just gonna pretend you don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of broadway shows and a secret weakness for Romantic poets,” Julia teases, tugging him along to a window display of dresses which might be described as ‘vintage inspired with the Thot-level turned up to 100’.

“I aim to live a life that would make Lord Byron proud,” Eliot sighs, and okay. Maybe that’s not true as much now as it was four years ago, with new chronic pain and a handful of substance abuse problems mostly under control and a life partner he chose, but– Julia doesn’t call him on it, just points to the dangerously high skirt slit and lets the subject drop. 

Quentin is lying on the couch, head hanging upside down off it with his hair brushing brushing the floor when they get home. 

“We brought back a cursed yak-spleen and fresh spring rolls,” Julia calls over to him. “And Eliot only bought two new ties and a pocket square, so we’re very proud of him.”

“O-kay,” Q calls back, half-singsong, and doesn’t bother to move much. 

Eliot detours into their room to drop off his little paper bag, and then makes his way over to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch. “Hello,” he says to Q, and then, “Hello to you too, Needy Baby,” to Dessy, who hops off the couch to smell him. She sneezes, sniffs him again, and then starts trying to rub her whole self all over him.

“Hi,” Quentin returns, then grins. “Spiderman kiss?”

Eliot snorts, leaning in a little. “I probably smell like bridge troll, that’s why the Needy Baby is losing her mind.”

“Don’t know if I care, though,” Quentin says seriously, and Eliot smiles, a little, because well. Quentin is ridiculous, and Eliot loves him. He has to lean down quite a bit to kiss him, at this angle, and it makes his back complain quite a lot, so it’s a pretty brief ‘hello’ kind of kiss, but Quentin seems satisfied. 

“Why are you hanging off the couch?” He asks, straightening up, or trying too. He doesn’t quite make it before his stupid back siezes again. 

“Talked to Kady, flopped here, haven’t moved,” Quentin says vaguely, waving his hand. “She’s fine with my taking Dessy to get a check-up with Gordy, I definitely built it up to be a bigger issue in my head than it was and now I feel dumb. You know. Same shit, different day.”

“That’s good,” Eliot says encouragingly. “Did you set up the appointment yet?”

“No,” Quentin says, face wrinkling up. “Because, like. Phones, you know?”

“I’ll do this bit,” Eliot says decisively, because this was a big hurdle for Q to overcome, as flippant as he’s being about it now. Eliot can pull some weight in the dog-related battles. “Do you have the number?”

The admin assistant at Gordy’s vet clinic is very nice, and apparently Gordy rushes to fit them in as soon as she mentions Kady’s name. Which speaks either to how truly terrifying and competent Kady is as a person, or how fucking much weird bad shit has happened to the entire magic community in the last year. Eliot’s more inclined to think it’s the latter, terrifying and competent though Kady may be.

In any case, they end up in a veterinary office in midtown within the week, a very excited little dog practically vibrating in Quentin’s lap. She’s got no reason to be scared, has never been to the vet before, but has been to many, many other places in her short little life. Curious about everything, eager to chase every smell, Quentin has to scoop her up into his lap almost as soon as they get into the waiting room.

“You need to chill,” Eliot tells the dog, seriously, like that’s going to have any effect whatsoever. It does not, but it makes Q smile a little, so Eliot calls it a win. 

Quentin’s in Dad Mode, and Eliot couldn’t have told you two days ago what that looks like on Q, but he can tell it when he sees it. Attentive, focused and stern, he coaches Dessy up onto the scale to be weighed, and then keeps her close and mostly calm while they wait. Eliot kind of sits back and lets him do his thing metaphorically speaking, because sitting hurts, but standing actually doesn’t anymore, so he’s going to do that.

Dessy yelps when Gordy gives her the shots she needs, and the sound scrapes along the inside of Eliot’s chest the way a child’s cry would but– it’s over fast, and Quentin’s only looking a little guilty and mostly seems to focus on trying to soothe the puppy.

“Your pup gets a clean bill of health,” the animal-nurse says cheerfully, scritching Dessy under her chin, when she comes back to let them out.

“Oh, she’s not um–” Quentin’s face tinges pink, an unhappy twist to his mouth that kind of makes Eliot want to fight things. Like, in general. As a concept. “She’s not really our dog. She belongs to our roommate but she’s out of town, so–” He gives a little half-shrug like ‘what can you do’ as Eliot slips his hand out to rest against the dip in Q’s spine over his hoodie.

It rubs Eliot the wrong way, like it’s been rubbing him the wrong way for a while, the way Quentin keeps feeling like he has to _correct_ this. Eliot had given up on it a while ago, but he’s always been fine with letting people draw what conclusions they want about the facade he presents to the world. Quentin, deeply invested in _truth_ like he is, can’t quite bring himself to claim this, as much as he wants it.

And he wants it. Eliot knows he wants it, in the same way he knows Quentin holds the dog the same way he would hold a baby, talks to her softly like he would if she might some day start talking back. Quentin _loves_ this dog, and takes better care of her than he does himself half the time, and as far as Eliot’s concerned... that’s enough.

So maybe it’s time Eliot does something about it.

__

Eliot plonks a six pack of Kady’s shitty beer of choice down on the table in front of her, doing her the courtesy at least of making sure it doesn’t go down on any of her paperwork. Heaven forbid a can of PBR sweat on top whatever bit of hedge business is keeping her here, Library tech plans or some other kind of more ephemeral networking problem.

“Why are you giving me booze?” Kady asks suspiciously, reaching for a can like if she doesn’t claim it fast enough Eliot’s going to take them away. Like he’d ever _willing_ drink the shit his alcoholic-and-punchy-about-it father drank. 

“Because this has the potential to be an unpleasant conversation, and I believe in buying people off in advance,” he says succinctly, dropping into a chair and ignoring the flair of pain in his hip. Standing and laying down could now be accomplished pain-free, but the mysterious art of _sitting_ still seems to elude him, oh fucking joy. Chronic pain did nothing to improve his moods.

“How very political of you,” Kady says dryly, looking over the rim of her can at him. “Miraculous you weren’t elected leader of a small third world nation.”

The jab stings like she means it too, but Eliot doesn’t let himself rise to her words or react in any other way beyond a mild eyebrow raise. “Just because some horny beavers decided to vote for the beastality candidate doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m about, honey.”

“Touche.” Kady tips her can at him, taking a long draft before setting it aside. “What do you need?”

“You know Q loves that dog, right?” Eliot says, cutting right to the chase, tapping his fingers lightly on the table. “Like, loves her the way people love their actual real human babies.”

Of course, she might or might not know this, because Kady spares about as much room in her brain for Quentin as she does the New York City bus system: something which exists around her and with which she occasionally interacts, but has no real bearing on her daily life. If they’re friends at all it’s through about 3 layers, buffered by Alice and Julia. Eliot can’t remember the last conversation Kady and Quentin had that wasn’t about dog logistics or something similar to their version of work talk, and Eliot pays a lot of attention to the conversations Quentin has with people. Especially people likely to say things to send him into a downward spiral, which was a short list consisting mostly of Kady, New-Penny and Bad-Days-Alice. Irritatingly, that list also comprised most of their non-Fillory-bound social circle.

“I mean– I know you guys watch her a lot,” Kady starts, and Eliot– breathes, carefully, through his irritation.

“Julia watches her,” Eliot corrects, tap, tap, tapping the table. “Julia watches her when _Quentin and I are busy._ Like the occasional weekend when we go to Fillory. Watching a friend’s dog is a low effort enterprise, and does not usually involve setting up vet appointments or buying food or knowing which particular version of tooth-brushing-chew makes her tummy upset. That’s the shit that dog _owners_ do.”

“He doesn’t seem to mind,” Kady says, defensively, but Eliot cuts her off.

“No, he doesn’t. Because he _loves that dog_. And because Q was built to be a dad, and she’s the best place for him to channel that energy right now and also the least likely to freak me out.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Kady asks, a look of genuine confusion on her face, and okay, maybe that was a bit of an overshare but Eliot can’t _stop thinking about it_, about how Q holding the puppy looks so much like his memory of Quentin holding their newborn son. 

“Because I’m tired of watching him feel like he has to explain to people that she’s not really our dog. When she is, in every single way that counts except the name on her registration, Kady. I’m tired of him getting quiet and nervy every time you come home like today’s the day you’re going to decide to kick us out and take his baby away from him.”

“I’m not going to kick you out,” Kady says, a little stunned, and Eliot huffs out a breath.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but we could find another place if you decided the subletting situation wasn’t working for you. We might be able to find another dog, even. But we can’t find another Dessy.”

“What’s so special about her?” Kady asks, looking– genuinely puzzled. “I mean, I know she’s cute, but lots of dogs are cute.”

For a moment, Eliot’s genuinely at a loss. Even growing up on a farm, he’d never quite managed to see animals as interchangeable as machinery or equipment. They had personalities, even the fucking goats had personalities, and that among many things had been another point against him in his father’s eyes. But how did you explain to someone who didn’t get it that this particular dog mattered just because she was _her?_

She mattered because she’d been around them since she was a little tiny baby, and grew up knowing their patterns. Because she knows that silence for Quentin means different things than silence from Eliot, and because her instinctive response to distress is exactly what Q needs. She’s special because she’s the thing Quentin held onto when he was finding his feet, because taking care of her has been better for his mental health than any of them could have predicted. She was _theirs_ because every day of her silly puppy life she looked up at them like she _belonged_ with them, and because Q loves her.

Because Eliot loves her too. 

Silly little puppy.

“She’s special for a lot of reasons you haven’t been around to see,” Eliot says bluntly, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “If you think she’s interchangeable, then get another dog later when you actually have time for them, and let us have her.”

He half expects her to tell him to fuck off. It was a gamble to begin with, because Kady didn’t seem like the type to react well to ultimatums, but to his surprise, she softens a little. “I always wanted a dog, you know,” she says, not looking at him but out over the paper scattered across the table. “But when I was a kid, my mom used to say we moved around too much, that it wasn’t fair to the dog. I really thought it’d be different now, but...”

“We live in your house, Kady, it’s not like you’ll never see her,” Eliot points out, responding to her openness with his own. “But, maybe it can be you watching our dog when you’re here, instead of the other way around.”

For a moment, Kady smiles at him, soft and brittle, and he’s reminded that for all she pretends to be an ice bitch, Kady loves very deeply too. So deeply it’s almost killed her more than once. Then the windows shutters and she straightens up, taking another long drink of beer. “So, what, I just like... give her registration to you?”

A wave of relief hits Eliot, because dear lord, he almost hadn’t expected it to work. “I have to talk to Q about it,” he admits. “I didn’t want to dangle the hope in front of him if you weren’t on board, but I also shouldn’t just decide this for him.”

“Well, do that,” Kady says, all business, turning back to her papers. Then, as an afterthought: “Thanks for the beer.”

He takes it as the escape-window it is.

__

Of course, once it comes down to actually telling Quentin about it, Eliot runs head-on into the feeling that maybe he overstepped his boundaries. They haven’t _talked_ about it, and Eliot’s pretty sure they don’t need too, he’s pretty sure he understands what’s going on with Q enough that he doesn’t need the actual conversation to make it official. But part of this whole “we’re going to make this work a second time” approach has been not relying on assumptions they make about each other. They’re supposed to talk about things. 

He may have gotten a little over eager, but well. He _didn’t_ want to bring it up and then have the hope snatched away. It just means that now he has to stand there and say “I kind of made a choice for you, I hope it was the right one,” and deal with it as gracefully as possible if Quentin gets mad. 

Eliot deals with anxiety in his own way, which is usually ignoring it and probably drinking too much, but these days more than two or three drinks and Quentin starts to look a little concerned every time he reaches for a wine bottle. Which just makes Eliot feel scared _and_ guilty, another sensation he’s more than a little accustomed too. But he puts the bottle back, and goes to hide on the balcony instead and _process_ his _feelings_. Ugh.

He misses Margo.

It probably doesn’t reflect well on him that he misses her most when he’s feeling shitty, but whatever. He misses her all the time, it’s just especially poignant when he feels on the edge of careening out of control. It was his state of being for the first year of their friendship, it’s reasonable to draw the connection. And she’s also very, very good at telling him to get over himself, which he probably needs right now.

Quentin isn’t good at that, at least not in this life. He’ll ask, he’ll nudge, he’ll open the door for conversation, but he’s not good at pushing Eliot through it. He’s still, maybe, a little too afraid of pushing too hard and scaring Eliot off. Only time will fix that.

And the thing is... they have time.

They have _time,_ endless stretching days of it, a whole lifetime stretching out before them. There’s always a crisis, that’s just magic, that’s how it works, but for the first time in his life... Eliot really doesn’t want to die young. 

He always thought he would. 

It had been the thing that had surprised him first, most, upon remembering their time at the mosaic. Of course he’d love Q, of course, that was well on it’s way to happening already. But, he, Eliot, had grown old. He’d had a family. He’d had a good, full life. Not much had seemed more unlikely to him, then. 

Now... he wants more than a life cut short. 

And he can _have it._ So what if he stepped in it, so what if Quentin gets mad at him. He’s got a _lifetime_ to fix it. He’s a Magician, he can portal all over the world to find a bouquet of flowers that says “sorry I assumed you wanted a dog when you don’t” if he has too.

He just needs to nut up and talk to Quentin.

All his plans, half-drunk imaginings, for how this conversation should go fly out the window when Eliot comes out of the shower one morning to find Quentin sitting cross legged on the floor, holding a rope toy and laughing every time Dessy shakes her head to try and pull it out of his grip. He’s grinning, big and broad and full of teeth, dimples on his cheeks and crinkling the corners of his eyes, and he looks–

So fucking happy.

_I just want you this happy always_, Eliot thinks, helplessly, and he knows it’s a fool's hope. Even people with normal brain chemistry didn’t feel happy all the time. But, Eliot thinks he can maybe add to the pile of good things, and this dog is a good thing.

“Hey,” he chokes out, a little strangled, and Quentin glances up at him.

“Hey,” Q returns, eyes skimming over Eliot in a robe with his hair hanging in wet ringlets around his face, as unarmored as he can be. Quentin’s eyes linger on his chest for a fraction of a second, and then he gets distracted by the dog, tugging and growling at the rope in his hand. 

Eliot slides to sit down on the floor with them, carefully at first to see if his back is going to complain, and then more easily when it doesn’t. Dessy shakes her head again, tags jingling, and Eliot’s heart climbs up into his throat, but he seizes the moment to be brave.

“What do you think about keeping her?”

“Huh?” Quentin asks, momentarily distracted enough that his fingers go slack on the toy and it slips from his grip. Dessy stumbles backwards, holding the toy in her mouth for a couple seconds like she’s not sure what to do with it, then trots forward to bump it against Q’s hand.

“I talked to Kady,” Eliot admits, feeling a little chagrined. “Maybe I should have asked you first, but I just thought– you already basically take care of her. And Kady’s never here. It feels like it should be your name on her tags.”

“I– Really? What did she, um. I mean, was she– You’re still alive, so I’m assuming she didn’t kill you but.”

“No, she was surprisingly willing.” Eliot shrugs, unwinding a little now that it doesn’t seem like Quentin’s going to be mad. “I don’t think she was prepared for the reality of having a puppy.”

“And we are?” Quentin half-laughs, but he’s already scooping Dessy up into his lap. “Fuck. Hi, little girl. Do you want to stay with us?” Dessy, who’s never had any conception of a life in which she _wouldn’t_ stay with them, licks at Quentin’s chin. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve faked our way through having a family,” Eliot says softly, ignoring the surge of wanting that comes with that word. The look Quentin turns on him is knowing, and okay so, maybe he’s not the only person with a deep abiding knowledge of his partner’s secret desires in this relationship. Maybe Quentin knows what Eliot wants more than Eliot does. It’s only a mildly terrifying thought. 

Family.

Fuck. He wants it. Admitting it to himself shouldn’t be this hard. He wants this, and all the things that had come along with the idea of family: permanence, stability, a hopeful future. Eliot’s stomach aches with wanting, watching Quentin hold the little dog in his lap, scratching under her silly puppy chin.

_Marry me,_ he thinks, and swallows it down. _Build a life with me. Let me make sure you get absolutely everything you want from it._

_Too soon,_ says the part of Eliot that’s watched Quentin spend the first 3 months of their relationship borderline catatonic with depression. _What’s the rush?_ says the part that’s been married to Quentin before, knows with a surety Eliot can’t quantify that he’ll get there again if he lets himself.

This is good for now. It’s not running away if you’re just walking towards the thing you want instead of sprinting towards it. It’s still progress. Eliot settles in next to Quentin and Dessy, still reveling in the fact that he can do so without pain. Dessy pushes against Quentin’s hand, over to sniff at Eliot like he might be different than when she smelled him 30 minutes ago. Q huffs out a little laugh, leaning into Eliot’s body with his own, head tucked into the curve of Eliot’s throat.

“Our puppy,” he says softly, and Eliot’s heart throbs. 

“Yeah, Baby Q. Our puppy.”

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found as portraitofemmy on most places, but check out [twitter](https://twitter.com/portraitofemmy) and [tumblr](https://portraitofemmy.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


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